


in bloom

by bluebot



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: (but only kinda?), Fluff, M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 07:32:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14444424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebot/pseuds/bluebot
Summary: Lately, whenever Mark’s with Donghyuck, he’s had to worry about the flowers in his cheeks. There’s something about Donghyuck that makes them blossom, spreading across his face, turning his cheeks into meadows.





	in bloom

**Author's Note:**

> do y'all remember mark's part in yearbook 2? with his name in written in flowers on his cheek? for some reason i wrote an entire 2.7k words based on those two seconds.. anyways! enjoy

Lately, whenever Mark’s with Donghyuck, he’s had to worry about the flowers in his cheeks. There’s something about Donghyuck that makes them blossom, spreading across his face, turning his cheeks into meadows. It’s embarrassing.

Donghyuck noticed them once, too. He’d squinted at Mark from across his bed where they were seated, working on their science homework. Mark was worried, fearing he’d been caught as his mind strayed from his studies to the boy beside him.

Then Donghyuck had crawled over, the bed shifting under him as he knelt in front of Mark’s. He’d cradled Mark’s chin as he swiped his thumb over Mark’s cheek, and Mark just about felt his heart drop out the bottom of his chest.

“What were you thinking about?” Donghyuck had asked, curious and reverent, his hand still flush against Mark’s skin, “to make you bloom like this?”

 

From that moment on, Mark kept a tight rein on his daydreams. Whenever his eyes lingered too long on the curve of Donghyuck’s lips, or the delicate curl of his fingers as he held a pencil, he scolded himself. He’d learn how to get ahold of himself. He had to, or he’d risk being figured out.

Mark wasn’t the only one in the world with his condition, but he’d never actually met anyone else with it. He’d read interviews, wikipedia articles, medical papers-- he’d delved deep in hopes of discovering others who shared his reason for their flowers. Unfortunately, he’d found nothing that helped. No one else so much as mentioned a Lee Donghyuck in their accounts.

 

Donghyuck just wouldn’t let the flowers be forgotten, once he’d seen them. Whenever they sat in silence for too long, Mark fighting his errant thoughts, Donghyuck would inevitably bring them up.

“How does it feel, when they grow?” he’d ask, or “How do you get rid of them?”

Mark would answer his neverending questions. He’d suppress the urge to lift his hands to his cheeks to cover them up, to conceal them from Donghyuck’s curious eyes. He feared them popping up again, dotting his cheeks with sporadic bursts of multihued petals the size of freckles.

“I just wash them off. They’re kind of stubborn, though,” Mark explained, sheepish.

“Like glitter!” Donghyuck’s eyes always went wide when he understood something after undertaking some effort. Shining, and enthralling. Mark made himself look away. Shuffling his papers without aim, he missed the way Donghyuck’s face fell.

“Yeah,” Mark muttered, “I guess.”

Mark had to add “Never underestimate Lee Donghyuck” to his list of things to learn, right after getting ahold of himself and his unrealistic fantasies. When Donghyuck had his mind set on something, he would do just about anything to accomplish his goal. And, to Mark’s horror, he’d set his sights on uncovering the secret to Mark’s flowers.

Mark didn’t pick up on Donghyuck’s schemes, at first. He forced his eyes to stayed trained on the superhero movie playing on the TV as Donghyuck edged closer to him under the guise of reaching for the bowl of popcorn in Mark’s lap. Encouraged by his newfound will to learn to get ahold of himself, he decided Donghyuck had simply had a hard day. That’s why he’d cuddled up to Mark’s side without explanation. Nothing more.

Despite that, he felt the telltale tingling in his cheeks. He resisted the urge to bolt and check his cheeks in a mirror, to assure himself the flowers weren’t showing. He glanced once, to make sure Donghyuck wasn’t looking. He wasn’t, burrowed into Mark’s side and eyes glassy, reflecting the bright colors onscreen. Mark touched the tips of his fingers to his cheekbone. He let out a shaky exhale of relief at the sensation of smooth skin, bare and flowerless.

But when Mark withdrew his hand from his face, Donghyuck was looking at him. The corner of his lip quirked upward, but Mark couldn’t figure out why he was smirking. He cleared his throat as he lifted his eyes from Donghyuck’s lips back to the movie, where the heroes were suddenly, inexplicably warring amongst themselves. Huh. Mark couldn’t remember why they’d even be fighting-- he’d been far too focused on keeping his flowers at bay.

 

Mark started suspecting something was up when Donghyuck sidled up to him in the halls at school. He was tapping his foot as he leaned against the locker by Mark’s, waiting for him to finish putting away his books from his morning classes. The impatience was expected-- the shy look present on Donghyuck’s face, so uncharacteristic on his features, wasn’t.

Mark raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. If something was bothering Donghyuck, he trusted him to open up about it when he was ready. It was only when they began to walk to the cafeteria that he realized the cause of Donghyuck’s trepidation.

Donghyuck knocked shoulders with him as they walked side by side through the hallway. This was nothing new. But then Mark felt a sudden touch tickling the sensitive skin on his wrist, as fingers softly pushed aside the sleeve of his hoodie and slipped into his hand. Mark stumbled as he stepped, eyes snapping down, to where Donghyuck’s hand was intertwined with his.

Donghyuck’s hand was soft and warm. Mark had imagined holding it before, when his eyes strayed during their study sessions, over to Donghyuck’s side of the bed. He’d imagined how it would feel to be bold, to close the gap between them and enclose Donghyuck’s hand in his own. Now, he could put a feeling to those imagined thoughts.

Mark’s free hand flew up as the tingling sensation bloomed across his cheeks. When he looked at Donghyuck, searching for some answer for his inexplicable actions, he saw excitement on the boy’s face. He wasn’t looking at Mark-- well. No, he was. But he wasn’t meeting Mark’s eyes-- Donghyuck was fixated on his cheeks, staring openly as Mark felt the tingling mount in intensity.

He snatched his hand from Donghyuck’s.

“I-- bathroom,” he managed to say, and then Mark was fleeing. Running from Donghyuck and his boundless curiosity.

Was he that interested in the flowers?, Mark wondered as he burst into the closest men’s room. That intrigued by Mark’s… strange condition... that he was willing to hold Mark’s hand in the hallways, in front of everyone, just to see them bloom?

Mark looked at the offending flowers in the bathroom mirror. Under the flickering fluorescent lights, the petals looked washed out, their vibrant colors desaturated and tinged a sickly blue. Mark took a steadying breath, issuing a silent prayer of thanks that he was alone in the bathroom. That he could get the chance to recover. He turned the faucet on, then hesitated as he crouched over the sink. He laid his fingers atop the blooms, watching as they depressed slightly under his touch. They felt velvety soft, and so, so fragile.

Then, Mark stuck his face in the sputtering spray of the creaky faucet, and scrubbed. When he straightened, his cheeks were red and raw, but they no longer held any blooms.

 

When Mark slid into the open seat he always took, the one in between Chenle and Donghyuck, he didn’t mention the moment in the hallway. Donghyuck didn’t speak either, not a thing a thing about the flowers, or the way Mark had ran. For that, Mark was grateful.

Mark didn’t dare to look Donghyuck in the eye for the rest of lunch period. If he had, he would’ve seen the way Donghyuck’s gaze kept straying to his red cheeks. He might have even caught Donghyuck fidgeting throughout, wringing his hands beneath the table.

 

Their standing study session was still on. Donghyuck and Mark had studied after classes together every Tuesday and Thursday as far back as freshman year-- such a commitment wasn’t easily swayed, even by unprecedented hand holding and subsequent flowers blooming.

But the silence in Mark’s room wasn’t a comfortable one, not by a long stretch. It laid across the space like a suffocating haze, stifling. Being in a room with Donghyuck and having it feel this awkward was far worse than what he’d been suffering through before, Mark decided. Just as he’d moved to close his book, to breach the silence and ask Donghyuck if they could just forget that afternoon, Donghyuck coughed.

His ‘ahem’ was far too light and cute to be natural. Mark was smiling despite himself as he looked up at Donghyuck.

“What?” Donghyuck asked, voice a touch too innocent, as though he wasn’t already staring at Mark, as though he hadn’t just faked a cough to get his attention.

Mark wasn’t going to ask him what was wrong, not when Donghyuck so clearly wanted that outcome. He was still sore about Donghyuck toying with him earlier, whether it had been done intentionally or unintentionally.

“Nothing,” he made a show of returning to his work, picking up his pencil and putting it to paper, “if you need water, just let me know, okay?”

By the moment of stunned silence that followed, Donghyuck hadn’t expected that response. He was at Mark’s side in an instant, prodding his arm with questing fingers.

“Mark Lee, when are you going to forgive me for the horrible, awful sin of trying to hold your hand?”

So, Donghyuck thought Mark was mad because he’d held his hand. Mark allowed himself a moment to mull that over, knowing Donghyuck might misread the hesitation. If he was being honest with himself (which he really needed to try to do more often), Mark wasn’t mad at Donghyuck’s actions. Not at all. He would’ve appreciated Donghyuck holding his hand, under virtually any other context. But as part of a plot to embarrass Mark into making his flowers appear, it just made him feel uneasy and hollow.

“Look, can we just forget about that?”

Donghyuck leaned back onto his heels, drawing his hand away from Mark and into his lap. His brief attempt at establishing a light atmosphere dashed by Mark’s brusque words. Mark stewed in the heavy air, wondering if he should apologize for being rude, balancing that with his desire to ask Donghyuck to leave so he could wallow in self-doubt and uncertainty.

Donghyuck spoke then, interrupting Mark’s spiralling thoughts.

“Why don’t you want me to see your flowers?” He asked, his tone soft-- as if the wrong words from Mark would shatter him, like porcelain.

Chastened, not wanting to deepen the hurt-- because as upset as he was with Donghyuck, Mark knew that more than anything he was just frustrated with himself and his own inability to get his crush under control. He’d never wanted to hurt Donghyuck, not really.

He answered as truthfully as he could without betraying himself.

“I… they’re embarrassing.”

They were. Everyone else could hide the flush on their faces that they got when their hearts beat fast. Mark didn’t have it that easy. His feelings were written with decisive clarity for anyone to see, splashed on his cheeks in all the hues of the rainbow until he managed to scrub them away.

Donghyuck shook his head at Mark’s explanation, his face pensive.

“Only because you let them be. Mark,” Donghyuck’s gaze shyly flicked upward to meet Mark’s, leaving him on edge. The last time Donghyuck had looked at him like that, he’d ended up having to run away, “Your flowers are beautiful.”

A thrill went through Mark, and his skin began to tingle, little pricking feelings all across his face.

“Oh.” was all he could muster in response.

He didn’t need to say anything further-- without even seeing them, he could feel the flowers blooming, dusting the crests of his cheeks in color. Donghyuck’s breath hitched as he watched their progress in utter fascination, overtly rapt. Mark could only imagine how he looked. He shifted uncomfortably, raising a hand to conceal his face, to cover every telling blossom.

Donghyuck lilted forward to capture his hand. He dragged it away, and Mark felt the places where their skin made contact burn.

“I’ve never seen them this bright!” Donghyuck sounded thrilled, a wide grin lighting up his features.

Mark desperately wanted to run again. To wash the flowers off before Donghyuck made the connection between his presence and their appearance. A compliment from him was enough to make the blossoms spring up with more life than ever, it seemed.

“Can I...,” Donghyuck’s trailed off. He reached up with his free hand, raising it until it was mere inches away from Mark’s face. Mark looked from Donghyuck’s hand, to his face, the question he couldn’t finish written clearly across it.

Mark swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat, then nodded. His eyes slid closed as Donghyuck finished the aborted movement and his hand alighted on Mark’s face. He listened to Donghyuck’s breath, deep and even, as he ran his thumb over the blossoms. He took such care, was so gentle and soft in his movements. Mark barely felt the sensation when his thumb stroked Mark’s cheek, languid and reticent as it was.

He found himself tilting his head, pressing his face deeper into Donghyuck’s touch. Donghyuck’s breath stuttered.

Mark’s eyes snapped open-- Donghyuck looked surprised by Mark’s movement. He had a widened gaze and he was completely still, petrified.

“S-sorry.”

“It’s cool,” Donghyuck assured.

The corners of his mouth dipped, though, as he looked to be lost in thought. Mark wondered wildly if he’d somehow messed this all up. If he’d broken the tenuous atmosphere, shattering his chance. But then he caught sudden movement as the tip of Donghyuck’s tongue flicked out to wet his lips. And before Mark could think, could process it, Donghyuck was leaning forward.

His eyes slid shut as he moved, slow enough for Mark to stop him, if he wished. He didn’t. Donghyuck’s hand adjusted in its hold on Mark, dropping down to cradle his jaw.

The last thing Mark registered was the tingling on his cheeks, and then Donghyuck’s lips were on his, and he could focus on little else. He gasped into Donghyuck’s mouth, surprised, pleased beyond belief.

After a spell of time that might have been either a handful of seconds or a decade, Donghyuck pulled back. He looked on Mark, hesitantly.

“Was that okay?”

Mark nodded urgently, utterly incapable of forming words. Donghyuck’s lips curved up into a soft smile and Mark _had_ to feel them under his again. Had to recapture that pressure, had to chase the hint of Donghyuck’s cherry chapstick he could have sworn he’d tasted. He leaned forward, the movement upending the notebook and pencil on his lap, causing them to fall off and onto his bedroom floor.

Mark made sure his eyes were closed, the second time they kissed.

❁❁

 

“Oh my God, they’re holding hands under the table again,” Jisung whined, pushing his lunch tray away as if the mere proximity of public displays of affection made him nauseated.

“What?” Donghyuck protested, voice indignant, “no we’re not!”

Mark felt the soft smile he'd already been wearing grow at Donghyuck's words. He’d sit this one out, content to watch Donghyuck fight a losing battle as he continued his effort to eat his lunch with only his left hand.  
“Yes, you are,” Jaemin rolled his eyes, “For one, where the fuck are your hands? For another-- Mark’s face looks like he fell headfirst into a florist’s.”

“Can you guys at least keep the couple-y stuff to where we don’t have to witness it? Please?” Jisung's nose was scrunched in disgust.

“I think it’s cute.” Chenle stepped in to defend them, sounding like he was prepared to argue until Jisung came to see it his way.

Turns out, that was unnecessary. At Chenle's words, Jisung suddenly changed demeanor. He no longer looked with exaggerated offense at Mark and Donghyuck. Instead, he made guilty eye contact with Chenle, as a bright flush colored his cheeks. Mark watched the blush in fascination, wondering how it was even possible for someone to be less discreet than him.

“Whatever,” Jisung muttered, face red. Chenle hummed, satisfied with himself for getting Jisung to back down. Jaemin snorted in disbelief, presumably at Chenle and Jisung's antics. Renjun reached across Jeno’s chest to bat at his arm, prompting an affronted ‘Hey!’.

As their friends squabbled and Donghyuck continued to defend their nonexistent honor to an audience of none, Mark squeezed Donghyuck’s hand under the table. He reveled in its warmth, wondering at how something so small and delicate could impart such a sense of security. Donghyuck's tirade petered out and he glanced away from their friends, a soft smile on his face meant only for Mark to see. His gaze traced the line of Mark's cheeks, where Mark could feel the flowers in bloom. Then Donghyuck raised his eyes to meet Mark's, and squeezed his hand back.


End file.
